


Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum

by Tieleen



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, being human AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 03:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/pseuds/Tieleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Fiat justitia ruat caelum, Nina. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.</em>  Herrick, Being Human</p><p>A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, living in a small house on a quiet street. A random snippet from a world that didn't happen, because Erik as a werewolf makes just a little too much sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum

Erik sits perfectly still, watching him. Charles' hands are framing his face, now, fingers almost touching skin, and he imagines he can feel warmth seeping through.

"What happens after, Erik?" Charles says. "You find him, you kill him, vengeance is yours. What happens then?"

Erik can't answer. Then nothing; then everything. He can't think of later.

He remembers the way that room smelled, remembers the door, always locked. Remembers his mother, always brave, always hiding her fear, planning their way out. Remembers Shaw saying, "Family ties mean nothing. This is what you are now." Remembers what happened when he said no.

Charles is kind, and wise, in an innocent detached way that's strangely appropriate for the dead. But he thinks what he's saying matters, that it's a factor here, when all that really matters is this: Erik is the thing that Sebastian Shaw had made him, made him with his claws and with his teeth and with that basement room and with Erik's mother's blood. Erik is exactly what he made him, and there is only one thing that can mean now. He's known this for twenty years. He still knows it, right down to his bones.

"Maybe what comes after is better than what was there before," Raven says, quietly, from the doorway. Charles turns to look at her, frowning. Erik doesn't bother to.

"What did killing ever do for you, Raven?" Charles says. "Are you really so ready to recommend it to other people?"

She smiles, rueful, passes her hand over her face. She does that sometimes, a distraction, while under it her eyes transform to black for a split second and then turn back. A nervous habit, Erik has thought before, or maybe just that sometimes she can't bear to keep holding her true self back anymore.

In a way, he knows what she'll say before she even opens her mouth.

"Is that a trick question, Charles?" She says. "It's not so long ago that we didn't have all those convenient blood banks, you know. Killing's done a hell of a lot for me."

Erik lives on truth -- he breathes it in and chokes on it, every day and every moment, because turning away is unthinkable. Raven is different. Raven makes the choice.

"If nothing else," Charles says, hopeful and stubborn, "that should prove that change is possible, don't you think?"

But he's looking at Erik again, and Erik can't give him the answer he wants. Maybe death has set Charles free. Maybe he was always like this. Erik's version of death, though, was in a small hidden room that reeked of blood, and Shaw still holds the key, even after all this time.

Charles is still waiting. Behind him, perhaps just slightly through him, the low sun is slanting in through the window. If Erik listens, he can hear the sounds of their small suburban street, someone singing in a back yard and a car idling by a curb. If he listens, he can hear a dog barking in the distance -- a distance greater than he can really hold in his head some days.

If he walks away now, opens the door and steps out, he'll see all that distance around him, a whole city and beyond; a prison so vast he can barely see the walls.

Charles would like life to be enough. A reasonable idea, perhaps, for a dead man. But Erik is not dead, not quite, and it will never be one he can follow himself.


End file.
